Thursday we went out to Lake Las Vegas. I’ve never been out there before and it’s a little bizarre seeing all that water and greenery and breathing fresh air! :o)

We were there for a massage at the Westin hotel. Being February everywhere was rather deserted! There was no one else at the spa!

The massage was amazing! I’ve never had quite such a thorough one before. Seriously relaxed all the way from the top of my head to the tip of my toes! :o) Lovely! :o)

Obviously being in America the spa facilities were all separate, so we just got dressed and left. We had a wander round the hotel trying to find a way out to the lake and failing! So we walked down to it from the car park :o)

Apparently bridges need a warning notice… :o)

If it wasn’t so out of season we could have had a play with the water activities, but there was no one around!

We were rather hungry by this point so using the power of our coupons app we found the nearest food voucher we had. Two for one buffet at Green Valley Ranch. Not somewhere we’ve ever been before!

The buffet was good! Lots of yummy salad and some awesome bread pudding :o)

We did a little shopping after lunch as we’d noticed a Williams Sonoma which is a fabulous kitchen gadgetry shop. We had fun playing “guess what it’s for” on the unlabeled items ;o)

We found a Michaels too for some craft shopping. Apparently Rainbow Loom is still the big craze as you can’t use discount vouchers on them! I got some purple bands and some Inkadinkado stamps (ordered the “gear” on amazon as it was much cheaper!)

We had early dinner reservations at Alizé so we went back to Flamingo to get changed. Alizé is at the top of one of the Palms towers and has an amazing view! :o)

The food was pretty amazing too! :o) I honestly can’t remember what much of it was called ;o) I had French onion soup to start, then “the chicken” followed by a chocolate soufflé :o)

Chris had the foie gras, followed by beef and finished with a chocolate soufflé too :o)

We enjoyed the food arriving covered and then an actual voila as they revealed them together. Then a quick explanation of what everything was before we tucked in :o) The waiters were attentive without being annoying. All in all, great meal with a great view :o)

We started on Sunday evening driving down to London to stay in a hotel for the night. In the morning we dyed my hair for the holiday :o)

We skipped the breakfast option at the hotel as they wanted £17 each for a continental breakfast! Crazy! We also skipped their bus to the airport which was £4 each in favour of the free bus from over the road! ;o)

The checkin process and security were very easy. Friendly staff and fast :o)

Time for some food at Giraffe. Very tasty :o)

We did a little work before a crazy dash across the airport for the flight! We weren’t last but we weren’t far off! It was so far to the gate!

The flight was good. Tasty food, friendly staff, good entertainment :o) we managed to set up the iPad so we could both see to watch Prison Break together :o) I did lots of crochet :o)

We landed into LA just after 6pm and the customs line was very long! It was gone 8 by the time we were through, had our bags and got into a car!

We didn’t have far to go to get to our hotel for the night, but it was rather awkward and took multiple attempts to find the entrance to the car park!

We grabbed a bag of Cheetos and a water from the vending machines and collapsed into bed for a few hours :o)

It was before 5 when we got up, packed and started the drive to Vegas :o) We grabbed a donut and smoothie from a 7 Eleven and then drove through far too much traffic for that early in the morning!

We stopped for breakfast in Summit Valley at a McDonalds before we ran out of civilisation ;o)

The drive was easy and we stopped in Baker for jerky and, randomly, puzzle books! For research into US publishers :o)

Arrived in Vegas and got checked into the Flamingo! We had a little wander round the Linq whilst waiting for our room and found a giant flamingo!

Once we’d unpacked it was time for the obligatory first trip to Hooters for wings :o)

We spent the afternoon hunting for a bank account and eventually got one! POWGI now has a US bank account! Yay! :o)

Wednesday is buffet earning day at Sam’s Town! We had a bit of a late start but then played enough to earn 2 free anytime buffet passes each. We made use of the first one each with a tasty brunch :)

We did a little work and then decided we wanted to go to the Drive In. We headed over to Popcorn Girl for some scrummy snacks and stopped by a Michaels where I picked up a Rainbow Loom. This is a fabulous new craze which let’s you make bracelets from brightly coloured rubber bands!

At the Drive In we saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 which was very funny :) In bizarre news – it rained! We had to use our wipers to see! No fair!!

Thursday is movie tickets day at Sam’s Town so we earnt one of those each before checking out. Then over to the Orleans with our bags. The room is down an infinite corridor! Right at the end!

We spent most of the day at Palms playing for another $25 gift card and getting Chris up to the next card colour :) Amazingly, I had my second ever Royal Flush!!

For dinner we introduced Colette to Hash House with their crazy portion sizes! :) I had the chicken pot pie which had lots of veggies :)

After dinner we headed over to Ballys to watch Veroniques Voices. It was an okay show, when I knew the songs, but I’m glad the tickets were free ;)

After the excitement of the wedding I’m not sure the rest of my blog posts can possibly compete!

Yesterday I spent most of the morning getting the wedding post finished. The internet was slowing me down!

We started the day with a buffet at the Gold Coast – amazingly our first buffet of the trip so far!

Getting the post finished got us kicked out of the buffet, then roasted on a bench in the sunshine, and then finished whilst sat on the cold car park stairs! Now that’s dedication ;)

Once done we finally gambled! Turned Chris’ free slot play into a win and then got free blankets at Orleans :)

We stopped to watch the planes at the airport whilst eating a sandwich and waiting for Colette to arrive and then dropped her at the Quad. This was followed by a drive down the strip to admire the neon :)

We finished the day with food delivered by rollerskate at Sonic :)

Today we had to check out of Rio and into Sams Town. I’ve never stayed here before – it’s quite out of the way but a nice place :) We tried to play for a free buffet but then discovered it was the wrong day! So we went to TGI Fridays instead.

Very tasty spaghetti and meatballs from the specials menu outside the restaurant – so special the waitress had never known anyone order from it before!

We spent a lot of the day playing at Palms to earn a $25 gift card. Just as we were about to stop, this happened…

My first ever Royal Flush! Woo! :D

We celebrated with Panda Express and Blizz :)

Then it was off to MGM to watch Ka, a Cirque show. We had awesome seats to watch the amazing acrobatics :) I loved it! Particularly the spinning wheels combined with skipping ropes! Craziness! :)

– Background –

This trip to Vegas was supposed to involve the planning for our wedding next year with close friends and family. As the trip approached it became clear that some of our guests-to-be weren’t quite as excited by the location as we were. So we decided to just go for it whilst we were here. For reasons that will become apparent towards the end of this post, the date had to be October 5th, and having arrived in Vegas on the 3rd, this gave us 48 hours to plan and have a wedding! :D

– The Preparation –

The evening of the 3rd we headed over to the Marriage License Bureau and filled out the required forms in the pencils provided – I’ve never signed an official looking document in pencil before! There was no queue, so we wandered up to a window, corrected our misunderstanding of their form, and in exchange for $60 we had the legal documentation required – it really is as easy as the movies make out! :)

We also booked Luv Bug Weddings to perform the ceremony at 7:30pm on the 5th, though we had no idea where! They’re a mobile company who come to you, to any public place!

First thing on Thursday we headed out to scout out locations – it was very early so the neon was still lit :) We had a quick trip to Frys to buy a camera with tripod so we stood some chance of taking photos. Then it was off to charity shops and pawn brokers hunting for clothes and rings. After a bit of a stressful day (apparently the only dresses left anywhere were in single digit sizes! Ugh!) we went to the outlet mall. Chris found an awesome suit pretty quickly and so it was time to find me something to wear. We headed over to David’s Bridal as I knew they would sell me a dress I could take away then and there and had the fun experience of trying on dresses in a proper shop! It was amusing as they tried to up sell us to a much more expensive dress, but we both preferred the cheap one, which was lucky knowing what was to come! ;)

Then a trip to the pawn shop over the road found me a lovely ring which actually fit! :) Suddenly a little worry as Chris had no ring and shops were closing! We headed over to Hard Rock to their 24 hour jeweller and found him a ring too! Now we had everything we needed for the big day! :)

– The Big Day –

I barely slept thanks to jet lag and excitement so we had a fairly early start. We got all dressed up and headed out to our first photo spot of the day! :)

Where else could we start but the Welcome to Las Vegas sign? At this point we posted photos up to Facebook and let the world know what was going on :)

Next we drove out to the Valley of Fire for some nature shots. It’s a beautiful place and I hope we can go back when I’m dressed in something more suitable for clambering and exploring!

We spent a lot of the day at the mercy of very kind strangers – whilst we had a tripod for our little camera, most of the good photos came from when it was in someones hands! We’d often be busy trying to set up a shot when some kind soul would wander over and offer to take some for us :)

We could have spent hours there, it’s so pretty! :) However, we had many more ideas for photos, so we jumped back in the car and drove back to Vegas. Time to get downtown for one of our favourite spots – the dice mural.

This one was a bit more challenging as the sun was so very bright! We lingered so long trying things out that we had 3 different people help! :)

We also stopped to grab a photo with the downtown cowboy :)

Somehow, it was already getting late and we didn’t yet have our show tickets for the evening. So it was back to the strip for more photos on the way to the box office. We stopped in the Bellagio Conservatory for their lovely fall display of giant pumpkins and had more help with photos :)

Whilst waiting to cross the strip and playing with selfies, another friendly couple offered to take a photo! :)

It was amazing how lovely everyone is when you’re in wedding clothes! Everyone smiles and congratulates you! Many confused faces when we explained we weren’t married yet but would be in a few short hours! :)

We collected our tickets from the box office and found ourselves in a hat shop which quickly led to Chris having a fab new hat! :) It was almost time for dinner so we played some slots for a bit mostly so we could take these photos! :)

Dinner was at the Eiffel Tower restaurant – a 5pm booking to guarantee us a window table :) It’s an amazing view of the Bellagio fountains from up there! We treated ourselves to a glass of champagne to celebrate the day.

Then we had a wonderful meal! I had the pork chop, whilst Chris has the rack of lamb, sharing some creamed spinach and mushrooms.

Whilst waiting for dessert this fabulous chocolate mousse appeared with the explanation of it being a French tradition for newly weds to share a chocolate mousse and that it was probably okay a few hours early ;)

Dessert was souffle! Neither of us had ever had one before and they were awesome! So light and fluffy and yummy :) I had chocolate (of course!) and Chris has the pistachio. Both very tasty! :)

We had a little while before we needed to meet Tim & Pam for the ceremony, so we loitered by the Bellagio fountains trying to get photos. It’s amazingly hard to get the lighting right, and when they’re running no one offers to help. We did have one lovely girl manage to take a nice one :)

Then whilst the fountains were running we managed a sweet silhouette :)

– The Ceremony –

The time had finally come and we met Tim & Pam outside Caesars Palace. They walked us over to the spot they use by the fountains for the ceremonies and it was lovely – quiet and peaceful compared to the bustle of everywhere around!

The ceremony was great – short but sweet. Tim said a lot of words which I can’t remember, then we said our I do’s, a vow together, and exchanged rings. Then we were married! :)

Pam led us round to take a few photos whilst Tim filled out the paperwork.

After the excitement of the day we collapsed back in our hotel room for a couple of hours before our show :)

– Evil Dead The Musical – Splatter Zone –

Yes, you did read that heading correctly ;) The reason we had to get married today was because we had already booked splatter zone tickets for Evil Dead tonight! :D Better yet, we got front row seats! It’s rather a different experience in the Splatter zone and we seemed to be in the minority with knowing all the words ;)

What happens when you turn up to Evil Dead in your wedding dress, sit in the Splatter Zone, and refuse to wear their t-shirts? This happens! ;)

Until this, and the live chat with Sirc, I don’t think anyone believed we really got married today! Certainly no one believed we were wearing our real wedding outfits! :D

It’s not like we were ever going to wear them again – right? ;)

– Epilogue –

The wedding story doesn’t end quite yet. Our “blood” stained clothes couldn’t come home with us, and throwing them away just didn’t feel right. So we took them out into the desert and buried them!

One day, maybe in the far distant future, someone might find them and wonder what on earth happened! ;) Until then, only we know the location of our wedding clothes! :)

As we are rather rapidly running out of days, we decided to go to Hooters for brunch… mmmm wings! :) We did swap the celery for a big salad though and had less wings, to make it more lunch like ;)

Then we decided to cross a few things off our todo list, the first being KISS mini golf. We meant to go here last time but never made it, so we figured we’d better actually get there this time! ;) It’s a round of mini golf played in the dark with lots of cool glow in the dark paintings on the walls, and glow in the dark balls! It’s a fairly simple course, but a good way to spend 45 minutes (plus, we had a BOGOF!) :)

Despite my 2 hole-in-ones we had identical scores at the end thanks to my inability to aim a few times ;) We were given a card for a free round next time, so I suspect we’ll come back next visit for another go :)

Then we headed over to the Pinball Hall of Fame to lose some time to the machines :) The South Park machine we lost all our time to last visit was nowhere to be found. We played on an annoying Simpsons game which was clearly broken as every time you entered the garage you had to wait a long time for the ball to reappear! We also played on an Iron Man machine which had a pop up figure you had to hit, and this great old game with racing cars which went round to score points! :)

As always happens there, time passed too quickly and it was suddenly time to head back to get changed before going out to dinner. Tonight we had reservations at Nove, mostly because we had a coupon for 50% off (up to $50) which worked there. We were surprised to discover that the restaurant was way up at the top of the tower, and we had an awesome view! :)

We had some bread to start, followed by the Salumi (a selection of cured meats, cheese, a red pizza, olives and picked veg), then I had the Raviloi and Chris had the Risotto. I had a Purple Wolf cocktail which was rather scrummy too ;)

All the food was very tasty and as we finished our mains the sun was going down and the neon all beginning to light up :)

Figuring we needed to wait a little longer for the view to be even better, we ordered desert ;) We had the Cannoli which claimed we got to make them ourselves… they weren’t kidding! :)

What a mess we made trying to get all that cream and topping into 5 little cannoli ;) The view before we left was worth it though, as we got to see the lights in all their glory! :D

We paid for the balance of the meal after the coupon with Chris’ points so it was an awesome free dinner! :D

The night ended with more video poker at Hooters, as is often the case now ;)

Today started slowly with the morning mostly lost to blog writing, email writing and app making. Sometimes the computers steal us away from our holiday, but we have to keep up with work too ;)

We decided it was time for some vegetables and headed to Sweet Tomatoes for brunch :) We love this place, so much salad and tasty soups and yummy fresh baked bread :) Unfortunately they seem to have stopped sending us coupons – we usually go a few times with multiple vouchers, but this time we just had one for Chris’ Birthday. At least we got one visit :) We don’t think she actually scanned the coupon, so we might be sneaky and go again with it ;)

Then we stopped by the cactus garden again as there were lots of almost flowers last time and I knew there’d be some flowering going on now :) Not often you get to see cacti flowering, so we went and took some photos :)

We decided it was about time we used some of the many gambling coupons we had from the 2 books of Vegas vouchers, so the afternoon was spent gambling. We started in Sam’s Town where we had $10 free play each – we won $20 between us :) Then off downtown to wander along Fremont Street and stop in a few places. First up was Binions where Chris turned $10 free play into a $20 win and also was randomly given $10 (he must have earnt it on a previous trip!) Then over to El Cortez where we both had $15 free play, we only came away with $10 between us, but still free money :) Next stop was the Golden Gate, pausing to purchase a crazy drink on the way in! :)

We eyed up this crazy glass the last time we were here – it’s shaped like the sign and HUGE! Mine is filled with strawberry daiquiri and it cost $35! That’s a lot of drink, it was very heavy! ;) Inside, I signed up to be a new player and got a $25 match play chip which Chris played on blackjack and won $50! Woo! :) I also got a pack of cards and a pair of dice for signing up :)

Time was running away with us so we started heading back to the strip, but we had to stop at Luv It’s frozen custard first, particularly since I’d managed to find a BOGOF voucher! :D Half price tastiness! :D

All the ice cream eating had taken a touch longer than expected and by the time we parked, we only had 20 minutes to get from the car park in Planet Hollywood, through the mall, across the strip, through another shopping center, across Aria, and up to the theatre! ARGH! It was a very fast walk and we made it with just a few minutes to spare! Sat in our seats, and the performance started :) Tonight was Zarkana, a Cirque de Soleil show. The only previous Cirque show I’ve seen was Criss Angel, which you may recall I really didn’t like ;) But that was Criss’ fault! Chris has seen a few Cirque shows and doesn’t really like them, but we got free tickets through MyVegas so it seemed time to let me see one properly :)

I loved it! Seriously! Of course, now I’ve read the description which says “Rock Opera” I’m not at all surprised! I loved the signing, and the music, and the amazing acrobatic feats! They made everything look so effortless that you sometimes forgot to clap, till you took a moment to look at the scene and realised that normal human bodies don’t do that! ;) We weren’t allowed to take photos, so I’ll just include the original trailer for the original version here:

The Vegas show is, I suspect, cut down slightly, as we didn’t see all of those performers. Shows in Vegas are only ever 90 minutes, apparently audiences here can’t cope with any longer ;) Apparently there’s a story, but it was lost on me, I just saw a circus come alive with strange mutants. They sing in a nonsense but scripted language which meant I spent the whole time trying to work out what language it was, only to discover it wasn’t! I guess it means we’re all equally left without meaning, but I wonder if their story might have been clearer had they used English ;) Also, there were stupid clowns being annoying and distracting me from the awesome acrobatics, which was annoying! I would have much preferred the show without their stupidity! But overall, a most enjoyable evening and good free seats :)

I was very upset to discover that they don’t yet have a sound track CD :( But I did get a couple of pairs of fab Zarkana socks (Chris is jealous, they didn’t have mens sizes!) I will be keeping one eye on the internet for it, as I really loved the music, even with the nonsense words ;)

After the show we were supposed to be going for dinner at Pampas, a Brazilian restaurant with meat on skewers… but we weren’t really hungry! Apparently too much frozen custard! So we ended up at the Palms instead, using more of Chris’ comp on tasty stromboli for dinner :)

Just the right amount of food for dinner :) Then back to Hooters for more gambling ;) Although I didn’t last very long, apparently I was suddenly very tired!

After a very late night we had a bit of a lie in this morning – didn’t get up till 11am! :o The bed here is apparently very comfy and we’re both sleeping very well in it, which is good :D

We decided to go to Hash House for our brunch, figuring the Diamond card did a good job of queue jumping the last time. It did the same again this time, although into a very noisy room! Last visit had been early morning, and we’d been seated in the special Diamond room. Apparently lunch time in the main room is rather different! Ugh!

Still, the food was tasty once it came and it did quieten down during the course of our meal. I had the Pub Crawl sandwich – more of their tasty corned beef with onion and pepper, cheese and mustard, with fries. Chris had the Pork Tenderloin Benedict, which was huge! :) The funniest thing about being at Hash House is watching everyones reactions when their food arrives. Everyone, without exception, goes “Wow! How am I going to eat all of that?!” and has to take a photo ;) Lots of people taking food home to tackle again later! :)

Once we had full tummies we headed over to Target on a bag purchasing mission! 2 of our bags are about ready to give up – the wheely duffle has stopped wheeling and one of the other duffles has a strap about to break :( So we went and bought new bags, very exciting :) Still, now we stand more chance of getting all our new games home ;)

There was then a lazy afternoon whilst we tried to decide what to do. We have a difficult decision to make. We originally planned to stay at Hooters for the rest of the trip, but couldn’t get much of a discount on the room as we wanted the posh suite and the casino host changed mid arranging, and our play didn’t look like enough to qualify for much. After all our playing at Rio we managed to get a free room offer for the last 5 nights of our stay. I tried to contact D’Ette to change our reservation and heard nothing. Upon checking in, we were told we could just check out early and that would be fine. No sign of D’Ette or anyone else in the Casino Host office, and the Players Club desk now just has a sign telling you to go to the cashier.

We figured that despite the awesomeness of the room, the comfortableness of the bed, the great location which allows us to walk places and so Chris can drink, but yet is slightly off the strip so easier parking and easier to get out and do things, despite all that we should probably move to the Rio to save the $700 as there seemed to be no way our play was going to get us the room here cheaper with no one to talk to! :(

We went downstairs to play some video poker anyway, figuring just on the off chance we spotted someone we wanted to be able to say we had played, but not much as there was no one around, plus, it’s a great place to play with good music :) Whilst we were playing someone came and said hi! His name was Dane I believe, and he welcomed us back to the casino, asked if we were staying there, and suggested we charge any meals to our room so that we could go and talk to someone at the “Ambassadors Desk” or someone in the Casino Host office as our play should at least get us some free food!

Wait. Hang on just a minute. What just happened?! You mean, there’s still a casino host? We’ve seen no sign of one! The desk is almost always unmanned! We’d given up all hope of our play being worth anything here! Now it might be?!

So now we’re all undecided again! We love being at Hooters, but we also love free rooms ;) Unfortunately we have no idea how much play we need to make the room free, nor have we yet seen anyone to talk to, other than Dane who caught us off guard and we failed to ask any questions!

Still, it made the rest of the evening’s play more fun :) Eventually there was another pina colada (the waitress was nowhere to be seen for ages!) and then we went and had some midnight wings :)

The evening ended with quad aces on a $1 machine, giving us a nice $400 win before bed :)

Today we were up bright and early to head over to Downtown and get covered in bubbles! :) There were a lot of people all eager to do the same! We squished into the big queue of people all eager to run and waited. And waited.

Oh my goodness it was hot standing still waiting to be allowed to start! The original information had said 500 runners every 3 minutes until 9:30 when they’d let the rest go. Seems they decided 100 runners every 3 minutes was better… and so it took ages! Eventually we could see the start line!

Then we could finally see some bubbles! :D

Then we were off! Hooray! :) I know it’s called a run, but we were walking, and so were a lot of other people! ;)

After a while we came across the first set of coloured bubbles :) There were 4 in total – red, green, blue and yellow. They were dyed with something, and apparently had a taste, though we didn’t try eating any! We made sure to walk through the middle where the bubbles were spewing out for maximum coverage! :D

Lots of people seemed to either be avoiding the bubbles or just didn’t care – bah! We were there for the bubbles! :D We might not have won fastest time, but we were definitely some of the most colourful people by the end of the race! :D There was an after party with tasty bananas and loud music and more green bubbles! These ones we were allowed to stand under, and so everyone was! It’s fun being covered in bubbles :D

Here’s the result of the colourful bubbles on our shirts :)

It wasn’t just our shirts that were covered – we were too! Head to toe in random colours! :) We were also very hungry having done this without any breakfast. So we needed to try and find somewhere we could have free food where we would be allowed in covered in colour ;) Alas, Tony Roma’s didn’t open until 4:30 so we couldn’t have ribs for brunch. Instead we headed over to the Palms figuring we’d be alright in their food court and had free Panda Express instead :)

Then it was time for a bath! A long soak to try and get some of this colour off! It was supposed to just wash off, but it wasn’t budging without some effort! We were glad for the jacuzzi at this point, and made very green water, hehe :D

We had an afternoon of computer usage – catching up on emails and blog writing. Then a little bit of video poker and my first alcoholic drink of the trip! :o When the cocktail waitress came round we actually said yes, and I had a pina colada :) It was scrummy! Never had one before, will be having more ;)

We needed to be down by Planet Hollywood for our show later so we headed off to find food along the way. Given it was a Saturday night we were expecting everywhere to be busy, but since we had a voucher for Nine Fine Irishmen we stopped there on our way. There was a 40 minute wait for a table… until Chris mentioned my Gold card and upon showing them that we got seated straight away! :o Wow! My Gold card actually let us jump a line! :D First time for everything ;)

It’s an Irish pub and there was a live band playing :) We had a beer & cheese dip to start, and then I had bangers and mash (I can’t resist when there’s a chance of British style sausages!) and Chris had some pork. It was all very tasty :D

The meal was mostly paid for with the MyVegas voucher and then the balance paid for with my MLife comp – yay for free food! :D

Then it was off to the V Theatre for our evenings entertainment – Evil Dead the Musical! :) For some reason we had VIP seating – I think what it meant was the section between the splatter zone and the cheap seats ;) But it meant silliness when we were greeted by one of the dead and had our photo taken, royalty from Yugoslavia ;) There was some annoying waiting around as the show before had started late so we couldn’t get into the theatre! Ugh!

The show itself was rather good :) Very, very silly with a lot of over the top splatter and silly songs :) Having just watched the first film I was impressed with how similar it was, picking up on all the ridiculous bits and making a mockery of them ;) I’m guessing the bits I didn’t know were from the other films, which I now want to watch! :D Alas, no photos, as we weren’t allowed to take any, nor a cool tshirt as they didn’t have any :( Chris has ordered the soundtrack CD from Amazon though ;)